Wikipedia talk:Biomedical information

  1. Home
  2. Wiki

Disease / pandemic origins

[edit]
WP:CLOSE per RFC: Disease/pandemic origins --AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 12:26, 7 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Moved from WP:ANI § Related discussion at Wikipedia talk:Biomedical information

There have been massive running discussions across multiple parts of Wikipedia where people argue whether or not the origins of COVID-19 are biomedical information and therefore fall under WP:MEDRS. Would it be useful to clarify that here in one way or the other - ie. adding the original origins of a disease or pandemic to either the "what is" or "what is not" sections? Obviously any full discussion leading to actually changing the page would require a ton of notifications to all the existing discussions, I'm just curious whether regulars here feel that it would be valuable to pursue - even if the other discussions eventually reach a conclusion on COVID-19, this could easily come up again in other forms, and I think the size and length of discussions, plus the degree of disagreements between experienced editors, shows that it's worth having a clear answer here if possible. To be clear, I'm not (yet) asking which section it should be added to, which is going to require a lot more discussion, just whether it's worth considering adding it at all. --Aquillion (talk) 16:19, 25 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'm wary of editing this page (which remember is not a WP:PAG) just in response to the current stramash. Sometimes the origin of a disease is (now) a largely historical matter - see Mary Mallon. This is, however, the second time during the pandemic that the WP:WLish argument has been made that because something happened at some point before today, it is "history" ... so eventually something may be needed to stop that silliness, though I'm not sure what. Maybe we could say that something can be considered history if it has unambiguously historical treatment in RS - appearing in textbooks of medical history, for example? Alexbrn (talk) 16:33, 25 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Aquillion, I have been quite involved in a few of the discussions on the origins of Covid-19 and on how it may (or may not) constitute biomedical information.
There have been a number of discussions going back many years as to what constitutes biomedical information, and this post from 2015 seems to make it quite clear that a "cause" of a disease should be considered biomedical information, and that's why you'll see a lot of good MEDRS sources describing the origins of HIV/AIDS, Ebola, and SARS.
Where it gets tricky with SARS-COV-2, is that unlike with SARS-COV-1, where the Chinese government cooperated with the international community and apologized for its early slowness, the current Chinese government is being anything but cooperative with the international community, and is tightly controlling any information that comes out of local academia (as described in this AP article). Without a transparent scientific investigation or forensic evidence of some sort, it is impossible for the origins of Covid-19 to be traced, and while scientists may come up with hypotheses weighing the plausibility of different scenarios, they really aren't proof of anything. In the first few months of 2019, the plausibility of a Zoonotic jump from animals to humans at a wet market seemed quite high, but no intermediate host was found, and the Chinese CDC ruled it out (source). Now, other scenarios are being considered, and their plausibility has been given more weight, due in part to a few inconsistencies with a paper (Zhou et al) that the Wuhan Institute of Virology (which was known to be creating chimeric SARS-like coronaviruses as part of its research funded by a USAID program called PREDICT) sent to Nature introducing a virus called RaTG13 (without any mention of a cleavage site), and another a paper (Jiang et al) they also put out introducing a cleavage site of another virus called RmYN02, and some supposedly crazy people are supposing a link between them. So in the dearth of evidence that there is for any scenario, I am not sure how much WP:MEDRS and WP:Biomedical information can apply.
ScrupulousScribe (talk) 02:40, 26 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
As it turned out, there was good MEDRS[1] on the question of the virus' origin. In my understanding the move to de-classify that question as biomedical is because some editors just didn't like what the MEDRS said. Alexbrn (talk) 03:08, 26 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I have been involved in some of these discussions, so I don't think it would be helpful to repeat any of that here.
What I do want to say, in the vein of remembering that Wikipedia:Policy writing is hard, is that whatever is written should probably make it possible to avoid MEDRS (especially WP:MEDDATE) for uncontroversial claims of prehistoric evolution. Also, I don't think we have had this level of dispute in the past. If you look back, e.g., at Ebola, there were plenty of stories going around, but few editors were bound and determined that Wikipedia state that it was possible that the virus might have been previously present in a particular lab. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:50, 26 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Aquillion: Probably belated reply but I think it was enough time to simply discuss WP:MEDRS/WP:BMI misapplication, abuse and bigotry. I think community who directly or indirectly met biomedical information challenges must opt to making concrete proposals on respective talk pages instead of wasting time on useless discussions which get us nowhere. There is tons of disseminated talks throughout Wikipedia and yet there is no changes. I propose to close this discussion as fruitless.--AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 18:44, 25 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I propose we expand the section Wikipedia:Biomedical_information#What_is_biomedical_information? to include this: Outbreak investigation. The paragraph could mention that the following are considered biomedical:
  • Diagnosis related to outbreaks
  • Geographical spread of outbreaks
  • Hypothesis of what appears to be causing an outbreak
An implication of this expansion is that some articles need to up their reliable sources to MEDRS level: for example, edits about the geographical spread of a disease should resort to secondary reviews in epidemiological journals, not just a popular press source (e.g. NY Times). In other cases, an edit that proposes to include information on an hypothesis of what appears to be causing an outbreak, should elevate its rigor to MEDRS, specifically epidemiological MEDRS. In the case of COVID-19, what I found odd is that Chinese epidemologists publish so little on the forensic evidence side related to the origin of the virus. Why is that? International epidemiologists also are silent because have no jurisdiction to perform the necessary field work in Hubei. In my opinion, this void of MEDRS either lets the Wikipedia information be too general (despite almost 1.5 years since the start of the pandemic), or encourage editors (myself included) to propose edits based on non-MEDRS RS. Forich (talk) 17:46, 5 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Forich: Sorry, but I'm going to oppose proposals of any provisions that might try to project origin of any disease onto a human health somehow. There is no direct implications of any pandemic/disease origin on human health whatsoever. Stop trying to push WP:MEDRS/WP:BMI beyond its legitimate boundaries. Where the viruses/bacteria come from won't influence the ways humans are treated much. WP:MEDRS is well enough in protecting from spreading primary research and speculations. There is no more need to allow to abuse its application further. I'm going to close this discussion if nobody minds.--AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 10:29, 9 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, User:Alexander_Davronov. Your judgment is in line with User:Normchou here, User:The Four Deuces here, User:Feynstein here, and User:Aquillion here. Editors who notably are generally opposing this view are User:Thucydides411 here, and User: Alexbrn here.Forich (talk) 12:08, 9 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for heads up. Don't get me wrong: I oppose any attempts to make up a general rule that can easily be abused. In fact, WP:MEDRS was abused virtually since the day it was adopted (as my investigation revealed in Wikipedia talk:MEDRS#Intermediate note) so this makes a point.
On the rest: well, there is plenty of policies that govern the way epidemics' origins are handled, namely WP:NOTNEWS, WP:SECONDARY, WP:OR, WP:CONSENSUS etc.. All of them should be carefully applied on case-by-case basis with full respect to WP:RSCONTEXT. No need to pile on guideline or use leap logic to invent instruments preventing others from being bold.
If you are going to make proposals to WP:BMI I encourage you to take it to WP:VPPOL for more general consensus. Cheers. --AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 17:48, 9 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I am not a doctor or anything, but I am pretty strongly opposed to expanding the scope of a guideline supplement based entirely around winning a specific political argument -- even if it is a political argument that's been getting thrown back and forth for about six months over talk pages, user talk pages, MfDs of userspace essays(!) and just about every noticeboard under the sun. My understanding is that MEDRS exists due to the outsized risk of harm (i.e. actual, physical hazards to people's health) that arise from Wikipedia being used as a reference for treatment of disease.
For example, it would cause someone actual harm if they came away from Wikipedia article thinking that eating bat shit cured strep throat, since eating bat shit is bad for you, and it could end up taking the place of other medical treatments. This doesn't seem to be the case with the origin of a disease: the precautions someone takes to survive, treat, or avoid contracting a disease do not seem affected in any way by where it came from. Certainly, the prevalence and distribution of a disease is relevant -- again, it would pose an actual hazard to someone's health if they thought Belgians were immune to chlamydia, or that you could only get anthrax if you lived in Argentina. However, it does not really matter what the ultimate origin of the infectious agent was. It could very well be the case that antibiotic-resistant Streptococcus was created by medicine, that some random outbreak of anthrax was created in a lab, or that chlamydia was brought to our planet in ancient times by little green men in an attempt to prevent the Ancient Egyptians from launching a space program. None of these things affect what you, the reader, should do about these diseases. While disagreeing about politics has often been bad for people's health, it is not a biomedical issue. jp×g 05:14, 11 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@JPxG, maybe this sounds idealistic, but I think the reason we wrote MEDRS is because we wanted to help people write high-quality articles. The way to do that is to start with the best sources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:32, 12 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
If that were the only issue at hand, and there really were no tradeoffs, it would have just been a project-wide revision of WP:RS. It wasn't, because MEDRS introduces a number of cumbersome inconveniences to the process of writing articles that are only justified under extreme circumstances. jp×g 02:02, 16 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
No comment about origin, but I would note that the three bullet points you mention (diagnosis of a disease or condition, geographical distribution of a disease or condition, and causes of a disease or condition) are already unambiguously included in the general case. There isn't any difference just because they happen in the context of an outbreak. The idea that biomedical information must relate to treatment, as suggested in one of the the previous responses, is a misconception - rather, it refers to any information that relates to (or could reasonably be perceived as relating to) human health, as illustrated by the list of examples given on the page. That said, discussing geographical distribution (prevalence) doesn't mean we need to use reviews, as that sort of information can also be cited to the various health agencies that keep track of such things. Sunrise (talk) 05:46, 11 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Sunrise: ... it refers to any information that relates to (or could reasonably be perceived as relating to) human health ... And that's why it so disastrous to expand the guideline even more: the bounds are so loose so it virtually explodes into an endless number of disputes every time someone comes up with WP:MEDRS. AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 19:20, 13 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Conclusions

[edit]

The question of the origin of an epidemic is currently not explicitely included in WP:BMI. Some editors have reasonably interpreted WP:BMI as either excluding origin because it does not serve as medical advice that can potentially harm readers, or excluding it because it can be seen to belong to the history of the disease (and history is explicitely excluded from BMI). However other editors have reasonably interpreted that the question of origin is included in WP:BMI per being part of "Population data and epidemiology" or indirectly because of the "relates to (or could reasonably be perceived as relating to) human health" part of the definition, which is a broad categorization that indeed could cover origin. Some editors vote on having the question of origin binding on WP:MEDRS because that would provide tools for editors to automatically have very reliable sources, which can come handy at controversial topics where pro-fringe editing happens. This would be an err on the side of having the strongest sources. In my opinion, this is a second-best solution after the best, which is: not err and follow what WP:BMI explicitely says.

The three paths of action that I see come from this discussion are:

  1. Agree on disease origin requiring MEDRS-level sourcing + modifying WP:BMI to avoid ambiguity in that regard (fixing the history loophole, and explicitely adding the word origin, so that it is not left as part of epidemiology or "causes" (e.g. causes could mean only the causative agent and exclude all the other details)).
  2. Agree on disease origin requiring very good sources but not necessarily MEDRS-level. Details about how the virus enters the cells to cause the disease, or how a virus mutates from ancestor to direct progenitor are BMI and thus require MEDRS. Details about who were the index cases, when did the initial outbreak started, what animal species were found to be the zoonotic source of the spillover, and where was the place of the first infections detected, would require high level RS, not necesarily MEDRS-level. Citing summaries of the origin that encompass both the BMI and non-BMI aspects just listed, would require MEDRS-level, because a reliable scientist is capable of commenting on both aspects, but a reliable journalist is not.
  3. Disagree on disease origin requiring any sources other than run-of-the-mill RS + modifying WP:BMI so that it explicitely excludes disease origins other than direct references to the identity of the causative agent (e.g. "COVID-19 is caused by SARS-CoV-2" would be BMI but "SARS-CoV-2 comes from bats" would not). Forich (talk) 05:07, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
That isn't the conclusion. As Sunrise notes, "diagnosis of a disease or condition, geographical distribution of a disease or condition, and causes of a disease or condition" are explicitly covered. As has been noted there are both biomedical and non-biomedical aspects to the question of a disease origin, so lumping the whole concept together is reductive and unhelpful. Whatever, we should not be rewriting PAGs in response to a one-off running controversy. Wrt the "lab leak" origin specifically, other applicable PAGs are WP:FRINGE and WP:EXCEPTIONAL. In general, my experience is always that the way to solve knotty content problems on Wikipedia is to increase source quality. Alexbrn (talk) 06:28, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Totally agree with Alexbrn. We don't need to change MEDRS unnecessarily. And there clearly isn't consensus to do so. We already have many other policies in place to ensure proper sourcing. MEDRS is not meant for this. I think this monster discussion should be closed at this point. I don't see new viewpoints emerging at this stage. -- {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  talk 11:30, 27 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Forich: Sources on origins of the COVID-19 should NOT be covered by WP:MEDRS. It's outside of the scope of this guideline. It's purely speculative political issue that should directly fall under WP:SECONDARY/WP:TERTIARY. I propose to put this page on watch just in order to keep application of the guideline and those who "enforce" it - in check.
…modifying WP:BMI so that it explicitely excludes disease origins … I propose to exclude this topic explicitly just to ensure WP:MEDRS isn't misused. Feel free to open WP:RFC on WP:VPP. See RfC on Disease_/_pandemic_origins AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 13:42, 6 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Another example of Alexander Davronov playing games. The RfC concluded saying that certain aspects of the origin were indeed WP:BMI, and others certainly not. This was in accord with the position taken by pretty much every experienced medical editor all along. Attempting to relitigate/deny this outcome is purely disruptive. Alexbrn (talk) 13:47, 6 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
OMG. I just repeat the same very point : keep COVID-19 origin outside of the WP:MEDRS scope. It's a politcal issue, not a medical.
…Alexander Davronov playing games.…
Alright. Here is the deal:
  1. lets' we ask some third-party (impartial) to start an WP:RFC on the WP:VPP and honestly, without all that partisan-stuff-appeals ask experienced, independent folks whether to cover COVID-19 origin by WP:MEDRS or not
  2. You and I will abstain from opining and will just observe
Deal? AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 14:08, 6 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
We already had that RfC.[2] Abide by the consensus, is what I say. Alexbrn (talk) 14:14, 6 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Alright I missed that. The summary just says that "the opposers have it." [14:23, July 3, 2021] (and I'm one of those opposers), meaning that WP:BMI shouldn't be broadened to cover COVID-19 origin sources.. What are you asking me to abide to? Let's we don't continue this discussion. If you got sources to discuss, feel free to bring them into relevant discussion on relevant pages. I propose to close this one and put an RfC link on top of it. AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 14:57, 6 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The summary just says that "the opposers have it." ← obvious trolling is obvious. Alexbrn (talk) 15:01, 6 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Facepalm Facepalm AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 15:03, 6 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Is this biomedical information? Clarification requested.

[edit]

I have been involved in a conflict on Cannabis_(drug) (see this talk section) over the following paragraph that I added (important factual information). The source I used was quite legitimate for a standard Wikipedia reference (cowritten by a psychology professor at Columbia), but does not meet the stricter WP:MEDRS criteria. However, the paragraph (in my opinion) does not qualify as "biomedical information" by the description in WP:BMI (e.g., it has no direct relation to "human health"). Can folks here provide some detail/opinions about whether this classifies as WP:BMI or not, and whether WP:BMI should be clarified to address this?

"Smoking or vaporizing cannabis leads to a rapid onset of psychoactive effects, which allows experienced users to titrate the effects. Consuming cannabis orally (e.g., edibles or capsules) takes much longer to have an effect (peak effects occur about 1 1/2 hours after ingestion), making titration much more difficult. Inexperienced users may choose to ingest more because of the lack of any initial effect, sometimes leading to an unpleasant experience.".

Thanks. Tagging User:Alexbrn. Finney1234 (talk) 13:34, 2 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The stuff about how the drug affects the body is biomedical. See under "Attributes of a treatment or drug". Alexbrn (talk) 16:04, 2 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
X drug has Y effect on people is plainly biomedical information. The part that is Inexperienced users may choose to ingest more because of the lack of any initial effect seems fine with a non-MEDRS source; I would say that describing human behavior like this is something that could honestly fall within the realm of economics. — Mhawk10 (talk) 17:17, 2 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yes except the invocation of "lack of any initial effect" embeds a biomedical claim, so is tricky to tease out cleanly. Alexbrn (talk) 17:24, 2 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Nice catch. If that part (lack of initial effect) can be established by MEDRS, then I would see no issue with the “inexperienced users may choose to ingest more” being cited to an RS that is non-MEDRS. But you are absolutely correct on the “lack of initial effect” part. — Mhawk10 (talk) 17:31, 2 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
One significant problem with the biomedical requirement, when applied to illegal (or recently illegal) recreational drugs, is that research meeting WP:MEDRS standards is very rare, so it potentially rules out *any* useful information on the drug effects. There's lots of documented psychological or casual-but-careful group reports on such drug effects (e.g., the 1972 report by the National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse), but it's not going to appear in medical journals (yes, I understand the issue of primary versus secondary sources). There are now some decent studies on cannabis that would meet WP:MEDRS standards, but it's still very difficult to do *human* research in that area (contrasted with caffeine or aspirin, or SSRI's, which are much less problematic).
Which suggests to me that "drugs" in this page (which require biomedical reference standards) should be specified to refer to prescription drugs, or legal drugs, or something along those lines. "Drugs" without further specification is (IMO) too generalized to require biomedical research standards. Just my opionion, of course :-). Finney1234 (talk) 17:33, 2 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see sourcing on recreational drugs as a problem; there's often ample. For cannabis, there is a metric shit-ton of it. Alexbrn (talk) 17:40, 2 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
There are a large number of animal and in-vitro studies on cannabis, and a lot of human questionaire studies and meta-analyses (often NIDA-funded and necessarily negatively focused). It is much more difficult to find a WP:MEDRS-qualifying study that would describe the effects of being "stoned", which is something that needs to be added to the Cannabis_(drug) article. User:Alexbrn, could you provide 2 or 3 examples of WP:MEDRS-appropriate studies for this? For instance, I'm not sure that the Mitch Earlywine (psychology professor at University of Albany) book "Understanding Marijuana" would qualify under WP:MEDRS (but it would qualify, IMO, under WP:Verifiability) Finney1234 (talk) 18:02, 2 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The "effect of being stoned" is in some senses just boring stoners' anecdotes, but as to measurable effects there's a load of stuff: we have an entire article on Cannabis and impaired driving for example. And of course there's lots of stuff on adverse health effects which are certainly "real". Alexbrn (talk) 18:19, 2 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I've found one (probably) WP:MEDRS-qualifying review study cited in Effects of cannabis. But it will be interesting to see what its primary sources are (probably *not* WP:MEDRS-qualifying). Interesting issue :-). Finney1234 (talk) 18:22, 2 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'd actually say that useful information on the drug effects is exactly what biomedical information is meant to apply to, from WP:BMI How a treatment works; whether a treatment works, and to what degree; factors that affect whether a treatment works; dosage and timing information; side effects, benefits, and disadvantages. Particularly with the implication that 'useful' means some level of dosage guidelines that a reader would come looking to WP for guidance on, that we have reliable sourcing is extra important.
That said, cannabis isn't illegal everywhere, and MEDRS isn't limited to medical journals. I don't think these kinds of statements will be that difficult to source with MEDRS sourcing. In this case, I'd suggest looking for statements and practice guidelines issued by major professional medical or scientific societies (for example, the European Society of Cardiology or the Infectious Disease Society of America) and widely respected governmental and quasi-governmental health authorities (for example, AHRQ, USPSTF, NICE, and WHO) in nations with legalized recreational cannabis. This will be more easily verifiable as the current accepted knowledge than a paper written by a few individuals, which is what MEDRS is really about. Bakkster Man (talk) 19:35, 2 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Bakkster Man: WP:BMI doesn't apply relative to the originally disputed contribution [21:05, December 1, 2021] as the diff didn't say a word about treatment, health or whatever. Please, don't ignore the context.

Attributes of a treatment or drug.
… How a treatment works; whether a treatment works, and to what degree; factors that affect whether a treatment works; dosage and timing information

AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 09:23, 4 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
As the title says "treatment or drug", and "drug" is obviously implicit in the following text mentioning treatments. Frankly, anybody who thinks the effect a drug has on the human body is not in the realm of biomedicine, probably needs to be TBANned from medical topics for lack of competence. Alexbrn (talk) 09:26, 4 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It's more importantly what WP:RSCONTEXT says here. Honestly, the WP:MEDRS isn't even a WP:PAG. Stretching out it because of the "drug" in the title? This is highly questionable. Opining on WP:CIR here? Wtf? AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 09:43, 4 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It not "stretching it out", it's reading English with understanding. I'll fix it to make it explicit. Contrary to what you say, WP:MEDRS is a WP:PAG - specifically, it's a guideline. Alexbrn (talk) 09:46, 4 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I imagine that Effects of cannabis (to the extent that it involves health/bodily effects, rather than financial, relational, reputational, criminal, etc. effects) would ideally have the same type/quality of sourcing that we would (in an ideal world) have at Health effects of alcohol, Health effects of chocolate, Health effects of wine, Health effects of tea, Health effects of caffeine, Health effects of tobacco, etc.
Does that sound about right to everyone else? WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:34, 5 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@WhatamIdoing: I will put it much simpler:
  1. harmless psychoactive effects (relative to h. health and if) proven by WP:SECONDARY to onset and onset quickly - doesn't require any specific WP:MEDRS application.
    I stand against any ill-intended attempt to apply WP:MEDRS to wider topics (sources) than it is relevant to.
  2. the effects claimed to follow by psychoactive effects of cannabis on the human health are subject to WP:MEDRS for assement. WP:MEDRS is about sources, not the content itself.
AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 09:22, 5 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
So in this model:
  • I eat chocolate, I instantly feel happy: "Eating chocolate makes people feel happy" can be sourced to any secondary source, e.g., a book written by a Chocolatier.
  • Someone smokes a cigarette, they instantly feel calmer: "Smoking tobacco makes people feel relaxed" can be sourced to any secondary source, e.g., a magazine article in Cigar Aficionado.
Is that the standard that you recommend to Wikipedia? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:16, 5 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
We got WP:EXCEPTIONAL for that. What I would definitely recommend is to narrow down the meaning of the broadly termed phrase Health effects which means virtually everything. AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 21:29, 5 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Do you think that "He smokes cannabis, he instantly feels an effect" is also an exceptional claim? WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:13, 6 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Alexander Davronov: I stand against any ill-intended attempt to apply WP:MEDRS to wider topics (sources) than it is relevant to. You seem to have misinterpreted it, both as not being a guideline (which it is) and not applying to "drug... dosage and timing". Perhaps I've misinterpreted what you've said and you're now acknowledging MEDRS PAG status, and are instead claiming that cannabis doesn't count as a "drug" when discussing "titrating its psychoactive effects" because it's "harmless". Harmless would need to be cited, and the original text above indicates an "unpleasant experience", which not only sounds like harm to me, but my readings of BMI and MEDRS don't include any application criteria that depends on harm apart from lawsuit information. BMI is BMI, whether harmful, beneficial, or purely descriptive of human physiology. Did I miss anything? Bakkster Man (talk) 20:22, 5 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    […] but my readings of BMI and MEDRS don't include any application criteria that depends on harm apart from lawsuit information …
    And that's the problem with WP:BMI. See my reply on Health effects above.
    […] cannabis doesn't count as a "drug" unless it's claiming as having theurapetic effects ("treatment") or somehow linking it to a human disease, something that may require non-primary sourcing in full accordance with WP:RSCONTEXT and WP:MEDRS#Biomedical v. general information example. You can't request WP:MEDRS-sources for every sentence or whenever cannabis is mentioned. AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 22:12, 5 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    There are multiple definitions of "drug". One of the definitions is that any substance that (a) is put in the body, (b) isn't food, and (c) has some [non-nutritional, non-mechanical] effect on the body is "a drug". Under this definition, cannabis, tobacco, and Valerian (herb) are definitely drugs, coffee and tea are probably drugs, chocolate probably isn't a drug, and sugar definitely isn't a drug. A substance can be a drug even if it is not used with therapeutic intent and even if it is not connected to a human disease. See also those detective stories in which someone always seems to get "drugged" by the villains: no therapeutic intent, no human disease, and we still use the word "drug" to describe the substance. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:22, 6 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'd clarify that caffeine is a drug, and that coffee, tea, and chocolate all contain that drug in varying amounts. The proportion of caffeine in each determines whether consumption is for the purposes of experiencing the effect of the drug or not. Bakkster Man (talk) 14:59, 6 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    A pharmaceutical company would agree with you, especially if their focus is on small molecules. A person downing a cup of lousy coffee for the sole purpose of getting rid of a caffeine-withdrawal headache would not. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:37, 7 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Alexander Davronov: I'm not suggesting MEDRS is required whenever cannabis is mentioned, I'm saying the specific cases above of timing of psychoactive effect onset and resulting titration of dosing are unambiguously BMI and should remain so. Especially since this shouldn't be difficult to find MEDRS-compliant sources for (surely some independent group in a country with legal recreational use has dosage guidelines for ingestion versus inhalation). Bakkster Man (talk) 14:59, 6 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Bakkster Man: In the WP:BMI version that was before Alexbrn changes drugs aren't covereved explicitly. Whether titrated or not, I disagree that the sources on drugs titration should be covered by WP:BMI outside of context of treatment. And the Recreational drug use isn't governed strictly, it's a special case that should be decided by consensus. --AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 15:25, 6 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
drugs aren't covereved explicitly ← they were covered implicitly. I just spelled it out. It's sometimes necessary to do this, especially for non-native English speakers who have trouble with implicit meaning (as a sometime editor of ISO Standards, believe me I know this!). Alexbrn (talk) 15:31, 6 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Alexander Davronov: In the WP:BMI version that was before Alexbrn changes drugs aren't covereved explicitly. I disagree, as the header is Attributes of a treatment or drug. Alex's edit seems to be a useful clarification to the existing text, are you seeking consensus to change the heading to only read Attributes of a treatment? Bakkster Man (talk) 15:38, 6 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I propose to explicitly restrict scope of the WP:BMI on the drugs, treatment, and conditions to medical ones: drugs in context of treatment, treatment of human health, and conditions of health of humans. AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 15:40, 6 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sure just reading that proposal is enough to give the aphrodisiac POV-pushers a hard-on! Biomedical content of all types need to continue to be covered, as it is today. Alexbrn (talk) 15:44, 6 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I agree to cover this in a separate portion of the WP:BMI. I'm perfectly fine with preventing misinformation. And I think WP:EXCEPTIONAL/WP:POVPUSH/WP:UNDUE should also already cover this. AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 15:45, 6 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I do not agree that it is reasonable for drug titration or onset of action content to be held to a lower, non-MEDRS standard. I do not agree that this is a good idea, regardless of whether we are talking about human or non-human drugs; regulated pharmaceutical drugs or non-regulated "alternative" or "traditional" drugs; prescription, over-the-counter, or street drugs; biologics or small-molecule drugs; drugs that aren't meant to be drugs (e.g., accidental poisoning); or any other category. If it's any kind of drug, with any kind of pharmacological effect (i.e., excluding nutritional, corrosive, or mechanical effects), then the content about that drug should be adhering to MEDRS standards. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:45, 7 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Do you want to turn the WP:MEDRS into a wannabe-policy for-all-the-cases on the wikipedia? I already imagine how alexbrn will jumpt from article to article "cleaning up" "unreliable" sources, wreacking a havoc, and drawing ire on his way just because some drugs were mentioned. There will be no end for this mess … Any substance can be named as a "drug" potentially. Even water. There must be limits for the god sake. AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 18:46, 7 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Alexander, if you have a problem with any specific edit you should take it to the appropriate forum. In my view WP:MEDRS is in reasonably good shape as-is, so need need for radical change. Alexbrn (talk) 19:05, 7 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
A wannabe-policy for-all-the-cases? No, I want MEDRS to be what it already is, and I want editors to continue to apply MEDRS appropriately, including by saying that it's weird to require MEDRS sources to talk about the effects that some drugs have on human bodies but not other drugs. All the drugs should be treated the same. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:37, 8 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I'd think that reasonable--there are also aspects that do not fall under biomedicine at all, such as legal matters, discussions of a spiritual or mystical aspects, treatments in literature--to the extent directly medical matters are mentioned, the sources have to meet Medrs; but other aspects do not. (And need I mention that over the years there has been considerable disagreement about the actual biomedical effect of this and similar substances. And it has been quite possible for a MD with a strong bias about the safety of their use to publish what they would like to think are the medical facts even in reputable journals. Not all publications by scientists are scientific publications. (the classic example is early 20th century statements on the safety of tobacco). We properly present these as historical now; it would be astoundingly unlikely that all of our present certainties will still be regarded as certainties 20 or 50 or 100 years from now. DGG ( talk ) 05:48, 5 December 2021 (UTC) �[reply]
There are multiple issues here (just my opinion, of course):
* Illegal drugs have limited MEDRS qualifying sources. But there are lots of worthwhile and useful non-MEDRS primary and secondary sources providing reliable descriptions of the effects of these drugs. E.g, for cannabis, Charles Tart's "On Being Stoned" (a 1971 questionaire-based study by an established academic). This would be useful as a primary source in the cannabis article (properly adhering to WP:Primary and WP:How_to_use_primary_sources_(biological_sciences)), with the article text saying what the book's careful questionaire studies state about cannabis effects. No one is going to medically suffer from that use of the source.
* Wikipedia drug articles are typically structured to describe the physical and health-oriented (not psychological or recreationally-desired) effects of medical drugs, including an "Adverse effects" section. However, recreational drugs such as cannabis are used for other and more widely-ranging reasons, some of which are not covered by MEDRS. You don't need a clinical MEDRS study to establish that N% of cannabis users (whether medical or recreational) state that it causes relaxation or euphoria (psychological effects not easily measured by medical instruments). And the current structure of Cannabis_(drug) provides *no* section for describing non-adverse MEDRS-documented effects that apply to *any* cannabis user (medical, spiritual, recreational), such as increase in pulse rate and appetite.
Again, just my opinion in this discussion. I appreciate the goals of MEDRS, something that (as an editor of cannabis) I had never heard of 10 days ago. Hence this discussion :-) Finney1234 (talk) 04:04, 8 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • MEDRS's goals have basically nothing to do with whether someone "is going to medically suffer from that use of the source." It's about making sure that biomedical information (e.g., effects caused in humans when they ingest a non-food product) is accurately represented, with primacy given to recent scholarly views. Speaking of which: do you know what's happened to marijuana during the half-century(!) since Charles Tart published that? Enough to make his "careful" surveys utterly unrepresentative of current experience.
  • MEDRS doesn't prescribe any order of sections. And you do need MEDRS-style studies to establish what users experience, because How to Lie with Statistics is an artform in billion-dollar industries, especially when their marketing methods are constrained by inconvenient laws.
WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:52, 11 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Condition & Drugs

[edit]

09:47, December 4, 2021 - «‎What is biomedical information?: while I'm at it»
09:47, December 4, 2021 - «‎What is biomedical information?: since it seems everything needs to be WP:WL-proofed these days»

@Alexbrn: Not that fast. This is certainly result of the discussion that took place here recently. I strongly disagree with any attempt to widen this supplement with any non-medical mentions of any "conditions" or "drugs". I propose you either explicitly specify that WP:BMI applies only in the contexts of medical condition or drug administration significant for the treatment of human diseases or wellbeing of human health generally or drop this altogether. --AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 09:39, 5 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
No, because that would be wrong. WP:MEDRS applies to biomedical information anywhere in article space, much as WP:BLP applies to any biographical information in article space. Alexbrn (talk) 09:49, 5 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Alexbrn: I inform you once again that WP:MEDRS applies to sources that are attributed to biomedical information. And by biomedical information I (personally) understand anything that may badly or very unusually influence the human health or direction of treatment of such. The WP:BMI (as I understand) intended to clarify the difference and I will stick to what I just said above and here. Agree or disagree. AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 10:02, 5 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
We get it. You don't like MEDRS and are going to fuck around with WP:POINTy game playing until the community loses patience and sanctions you. Hasten the day, I say. Alexbrn (talk) 10:09, 5 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Whatever. I stand by what I just said above. You can't ignore the fact that misapplication of WP:MEDRS in conjunction with WP:BMI already caused a decent amount of endless discussions that lead nowhere. This will simply clear the way for more. AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 10:21, 5 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
"endless discussion that lead nowhere" seem to me to stem more from game-playing editors who are not interested in building the encyclopedia. I have mentioned your edit at WT:MED. Alexbrn (talk) 10:24, 5 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Your interpretation is at odds with the consensus from this recent RfC, which removed a sentence in the lead that some editors had been invoking to restrict BMI to statements that directly covered human health (e.g., "anything that may badly or very unusually influence the human health or direction of treatment of such"); this RfC also shot down the claim that the guideline was solely or even partly intended to prevent negative health consequences that might arise from misinformation on WP. JoelleJay (talk) 18:27, 5 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
… also shot down the claim that the guideline …. That RfC explicitly restricted WP:MEDRS to WP:BMI. The rest is a gross misinterpretation of the RfC outcome. AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 22:37, 5 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Can you point to where and how "MEDRS exists to help editors find reliable sources in the fraught landscape of biomedicine literature, popular writings, et al. and is not intended to support those seeking health information per se" and the rejection of "concern that removing the "medical advice" bit represents an unwarranted expansion of MEDRS' scope" explicitly restricts MEDRS to BMI? And how "is not intended to support those seeking health information per se" doesn't contradict your interpretation that MEDRS should only apply to "anything that may badly or very unusually influence the human health or direction of treatment of such"? JoelleJay (talk) 08:26, 6 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
…anything that may badly or very unusually influence the human health or direction of treatment of such
That's just my opinion expressed above and It shouldn't be understood as my interpretation of the WP:BMI in general. The RfC clearly ended in preference of the Option 2, NOT in the preference of the summary of the closer. AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 11:08, 8 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The interpretation of Mr. Axonov here would exclude alcohol intoxication and its effects on the human body as a medical matter. It would make "alcohol is good for you, emotionally" a citable claim to any number of non-medical secondary sources. A plainly irresponsible claim. We must not forget the reasons why MEDRS is so important. The effect of writing about medical claims (and I include health effects on the human body of any substance in that category) is wide-ranging and of paramount importance. We cannot allow Wikipedia to become a place where misinformation about dangerous substances (and actually helpful treatments) spreads any further. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 22:27, 5 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
… interpretation of Mr. Axonov … Interpretation of what and where? AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 22:40, 5 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
For the record. All the following three discussions were caused by misuse of WP:MEDRS: [3][4][5] AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 23:12, 5 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
"Misuse", or "use that prevents me from adding the content I want to an article"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:49, 7 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Well, the WP:MEDRS serves the purpose of identifying sources (attributed to biomedical information), not the content.… AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 19:31, 8 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
But if you don't have the sources, you can't add the content that you want to add. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:26, 12 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I appreciate that everyone here is discussing in good faith. But this entire conversation has an increasing WP:IDHT vibe. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 16:50, 12 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure this is a case of #Failure or refusal to "get the point". I think it is more likely to be a case of utter astonishment at discovering that other editors not only understand what you believe would be best for an encyclopedia article but also actually, truly, genuinely don't want you to do that seemingly reasonable thing. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:23, 13 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Responding to Alexbrn's request that I clarify the original intent of the text. Yes, the intent was to include these cases, and I think that is inherently implied - the titles wouldn't make sense, otherwise. The repetition was only left out in order to avoid awkward wording. One of the central concepts here is that MEDRS does not require the specific context of "treatment" or "disease" in order to apply. Sunrise (talk) 12:30, 5 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Sunrise: To be clear, should your words be interpreted as supportive for changes made by Alexbrn at [09:59], [09:47], and [09:47, December 4, 2021] ? AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 12:50, 5 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Sunrise: I clarify the original intent of the text.
Doubtful. You made only a minor change to the pre-existing text introduced long before you: [04:52, July 31, 2015];
@Sunrise: […] MEDRS does not require the specific context of "treatment" or "disease"
Not the case either. Here is your edit for example: [05:13, July 31, 2015]. The words that dominate that diff are: medical, human health, treatment, disease. And all of sudden you tell us that …MEDRS does not require ... context.[12:30, DEC 5, 2021] By what I judge, you engaged in establishing the same context you now see as "not required". This is highly contradictive. AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 13:46, 5 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I support Alexbrn's changes. I think that they improve clarity wrt non-medical substances. Also, for the record, this concept also applies to "drug candidates", just in case any pharma person ever reads this. (For the pharma industry, "drug" is often synonymous with "product that already has FDA marketing authorization". What normal people call "an experimental drug" is not "a drug" in the industry jargon). WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:05, 5 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I support Alexbrn's changes. They add clarity to the text which is warranted and clearly in line with the original and lasting consensus about MEDRS. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 22:29, 5 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed, the edits add clarity and are good changes. It shouldn't be controversial, given it's just referencing both topics of each section's header in the body, but here we are. Bakkster Man (talk) 15:24, 6 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Alexbrn's edit seems fine. As an aside, since MEDRS is the application of policy to a specific subject area, it may be possible to shift the argument away from "Does MEDRS apply" to demonstrating failure against WP:WEIGHT or WP:V even. The recent RFC did not redefine the scope of MEDRS (wider or tighter), and very much has to be viewed in the context of editors warring over Covid origins. I can understand why an editor who views a guideline as "highly controversial, contentious, and seriously flawed" wants to limit its scope, but the community sentiment towards that guideline is quite the opposite, and the above efforts to seem to be heading in the admin sanctions direction. -- Colin°Talk 08:55, 6 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, Alexbrn’s edits are fine. Axonov, it seems you’re still under the same misapprehensions that you held when I last encountered you. I also find that the way you have quoted and framed my words in your most recent reply to be misleading. Sunrise (talk) 16:13, 6 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Alexbrn's edits. As I understand it, this stems from people trying to argue that this is not biomedical information because the effects of cannabis are not a "treatment." Plainly it is; it's highly specific, highly technical claims about the medical impact a drug has on human biology - and more generally, the entire purpose of a drug is to have a biomedical effect on the human body. If that's causing confusion because people think the word "treatment" means that MEDRS doesn't apply to recreational drug use, then we need to tweak the text to make it clear that it does. (I think that even without the change in wording, self-medication for recreational effects is still a "treatment" and therefore it is unambiguously biomedical information under the current text; but it is worthwhile to clarify the text here so there is absolutely no room for anyone to be confused.) --Aquillion (talk) 22:19, 8 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    @Aquillion: I see little reason to cover non-treatment (outside of medical context) administration of cannabis, caffein etc by strict WP:MEDRS sourcing requirements. May be you can enlighten me on that by a couple of links? AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 09:28, 9 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    WP:MEDRS says "Biomedical information requires sourcing that complies with this guideline". The effect of a substance on the body is a phenomenon in the realm of biomedicine. Therefore the effect of cannabis on the human body is subject to WP:MEDRS sourcing. This reasoning cannot be reasonably contradicted. I am beginning to wonder whether there is a language problem here? Alexbrn (talk) 09:37, 9 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Recreational drug use is a special case that is left at the discretion of the community as it may or may not require WP:MEDRS compliant sourcing. This is per WP:BMI as I read. AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 11:21, 9 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    You read wrong. Material about recreational drug use may be biomedical or not. That determination is based on ... whether the material is biomedical or not. That cannabis comes can be consumed in edibles or smoked, is (for example) not biomedical information. The effects on ingestion on the body are biomedical information. How is this not obvious? You seem to be under the impression that Wikipedia can craft "rules" which warp reality. Alexbrn (talk) 11:38, 9 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Alexander, it may disappoint you to learn that WP:BMI is a WP:SUPPLEMENTAL page (such pages "have a limited status, and can reflect varying levels of consensus and vetting."). The purpose of BMI is to help explain to editors what is biomedical information as far as the scope of MEDRS is concerned. It is not a guideline or policy page with community consensus for the definition of what is the scope of a policy or guideline. This page has been relatively undebated until the recent dispute over Covid19 pandemic origins. If this page is unclear, then editors will try to make it clearer. But please don't start wikilawyering about it. Particularly when it is obvious your of stated opinions on MEDRS scope are very much fringe on the project. -- Colin°Talk 13:05, 9 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Anatomical structure

[edit]

Could someone help clarify whether anatomical structures like brain subregions are covered by WP:BMI/WP:MEDRS?

We recently started this discussion after one editor deleted an entire section based on WP:BMI, but we could not reach a consensus. Should an article about an anatomical structure such as the amygdala, which likely first evolved in amphibians, fall entirely under WP:BMI and require only human-focused secondary sources published within 5 years, even if this might significantly narrow its scope? Benthorntag (talk) 00:10, 25 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Benthorntag, have you ever heard of the Wikipedia:Amnesia test? What would happen if you looked for the best sources you can find on the subject, and wrote what they say? Most of that section is pretty out of date, and some of the sources are really not good. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:31, 25 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
To clarify, my question is more about the general guideline of WP:BMI/WP:MEDRS. What would happen if one deleted all the sections on anatomical structures that lacked human-focused secondary sources published within the last 5 years? Is it good for Wikipedia? Benthorntag (talk) 08:24, 26 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Assuming those sections were otherwise policy compliant, then blanking them because of a WP:SURMOUNTABLE problem would be a violation of the WP:PRESERVE policy.
The options are not just "keep as is" and "blank". The option that is often most appropriate if the only problem is {{better source needed}} is to supply a better source. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:42, 26 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for the responses. I'm sorry to repeat this, but my main question is about the scope of WP:BMI/WP:MEDRS:
1) Do all sections of articles about anatomical structures fall under WP:BMI/WP:MEDRS? (I think no, but I want to be sure, since WP:BMI was used as a reason to delete an entire section in Amygdala.)
2) Do sections about anatomical structures require only human-focused secondary sources published within the last 5 years to avoid being blanked? (I agree with WhatamIdoing that {{better source needed}} is often most appropriate.) Benthorntag (talk) 23:09, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The answer to your questions is obviously 'no'. How could one have human-focused sources if the anatomical structure in question is a whale's Baleen? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:11, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Can I take it that whale Baleen, as well as Amygdala (whales have it), is not automatically covered by WP:BMI/WP:MEDRS? Benthorntag (talk) 23:40, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think you should instead take it that I'm never going to hand you anything like a Get Out of Jail Free card for using good sourcing. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:42, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I understand. I am just trying to get a consensus on the scope of WP:BMI/WP:MEDRS. Benthorntag (talk) 23:52, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The scope of MEDRS is biomedical information in any Wikipedia article. That's easy.
The WP:BMI page exists to give editors a general indication of what is considered covered by MEDRS and what is not. However, it's a general indication, and no matter what we say on this page, editors will always have to use good editorial judgment and reach a consensus about what's best for the individual article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:24, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I assume that we have sort of reached a consensus as follows:

Anatomical structures (like Amygdala) are not automatically covered by WP:BMI/WP:MEDRS.

This is because no one here has argued otherwise and the guideline WP:BMI/WP:MEDRS itself does not mention "anatomical structures".

I think this type of consensus is a good small step forward. I noticed many debates about "Is X WP:BMI?". This is because WP:BMI/WP:MEDRS is a powerful guideline, and experienced editors often cite it to justify edits, even when its scope is unclear.

It would be useful if WP:BMI provided a more thorough list of what is automatically covered under WP:BMI (like Cancer treatment) and what is not (like general anatomical structures), to avoid repeated debates like this discussion. Benthorntag (talk) 02:16, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No, I don't agree that articles such as Amygdala don't contain biomedical information. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:07, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I am sorry if I misunderstood earlier. Could you explain the reason of why anatomical structures such as the Amygdala is considered to fall entirely under WP:BMI? Benthorntag (talk) 04:11, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Could you explain the reason why you (apparently) believe that anatomical structures such as the Amygdala fall outside WP:BMI? It's sometimes one, and sometimes the other.
I really think you could do some good work in Amygdala by getting a recent neuroscience textbook and replacing the outdated information and primary sources throughout the article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:24, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Because anatomical structures can sometimes involve non-medical information and non-human findings. If we assume an article falls entirely under WP:BMI just because it is an "anatomical structure", this would significantly narrow the scope of such articles, which I don't think is good for Wikipedia. Benthorntag (talk) 04:57, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"Sometimes" means we can't say either that it is or that it isn't. It's both; it depends. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:08, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it depends, which means that anatomical structures (like the amygdala) are not automatically covered by WP:BMI/WP:MEDRS. Benthorntag (talk) 05:20, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Or we could apply the Wikipedia equivalent of the precautionary principle and say: Yes, it depends, which means that anatomical structures should be assumed to be biomedical content unless there's a reason to exempt them.
Also, it's weird to me that you're pounding on "non-human findings" when the removed material involved a lot of human findings. Non-humans don't do "compassion-oriented meditation". Non-humans aren't studied for "emotional intelligence", and we don't talk about recognizing "other persons' faces" when we're talking about non-humans. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:31, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Again, I want to focus here on the general scope of WP:BMI, rather than the specific example in the article Amygdala.
Your reasoning "anatomical structures should be assumed to be biomedical content unless there's a reason to exempt them." could be applied to any articles on Wikipedia. We don't normally say "all the Wikipedia articles are biomedical content unless there's a reason to exempt them" because this is broad and inefficient. Rather, it would be more intuitive to specify the types of articles that entirely fall under WP:BMI, such as Cancer treatment. And, if there is any confusion about whether "anatomical structures" are entirely under WP:BMI, then this is worth clarifying. Benthorntag (talk) 05:59, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We don't normally say "all the Wikipedia articles are biomedical content unless there's a reason to exempt them". But we do normally say "all the Wikipedia content (NB: MEDRS applies to individual claims in any article, even BLPs) that is potentially related to biomedical content, broadly construed, should be assumed to be biomedical content unless there's a reason to exempt it".
I am telling you the general scope of BMI: Sometimes a claim about an anatomical structure is BMI covered by MEDRS, and sometimes it is not. I will not agree to any sort of exemption for "articles about anatomical structures", and I specifically give you the examples of tying behavioral health (e.g., "emotional intelligence") and neurology (e.g., ability to recognize faces) to an anatomical structure as being BMI. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:00, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Your reasoning seems to be flawed. I want to make a few things clear.
a) If "the general scope of BMI: Sometimes a claim about an anatomical structure is BMI covered by MEDRS, and sometimes it is not", then the following statement is always valid: Anatomical structures (like the amygdala) are not automatically covered by WP:BMI. (by basic logic, ∃x ¬P(x), then ¬(∀x P(x))).
b) If your interpretation—"all the Wikipedia content (NB: MEDRS applies to individual claims in any article, even BLPs) that is potentially related to biomedical content, broadly construed, should be assumed to be biomedical content unless there's a reason to exempt it"—is valid, then almost all Wikipedia content would have to be treated as biomedical content. This is because any concept could be artificially tied to biomedical content. Thus, your logic contradicts WP:BMI, which explicitly says topics such as economics and beliefs are not biomedical. Benthorntag (talk) 14:07, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Your second analysis is wrong.
Let's shorten what I said: "all...content...that is potentially related to biomedical content...should be assumed to be biomedical content unless there's a reason to exempt it".
So: "all...content...that is potentially related to biomedical content" – that's a restrictive clause; see my User: page if you're not up on the grammar – is a lot less content than "all...content". Your statement about almost all Wikipedia content would have to be treated as biomedical content is already broader than the subject of my sentence. The subject of my statement is a minority of all Wikipedia content.
Secondly, for the minority of content that is the subject of my statement, you should start with the assumption that MEDRS applies "unless there's a reason to exempt it". Thus we have:
all content > content potentially BMI > content that is potentially BMI and not reasonably exempted
 
Your first analysis is essentially correct, except that WP:Policy writing is hard, and if we want editors to do the right thing by the article, then the way we have to write this sounds a lot closer to "Anatomical structures (like the amygdala) are not automatically exempted from MEDRS". And I suspect that you'd rather have no rule at all, than to have that rule written down, even though it's the real rule. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:06, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm not sure why WhatamIdoing is beating around the bush in responding to you, Benthorntag. No, anatomical structure articles are not solely about the human versions of those structures. Now, if you're going to discuss topics like social effects and emotional impacts and such and the studies available are on animals, not humans, then that should be explicitly noted in the article so that there isn't confusion about this applying to humans without relevant evidence. But, no, source requirements are not BMI relevant when what is being discussed is not human in subject nature.
In fact, a great many of our general anatomy articles on Wikipedia are incredibly poor when it comes to discussing broader animal (and non-animal for that matter) relevance for those subjects, focusing almost exclusively on the subjects as relates to humans. This is, in part, likely because most of the available scientific research on the subjects have only or mostly been done on humans, so there just isn't much available to more broadly discuss them beyond that. However, there's certainly plenty of cases where editors have just been lacking or outright irresponsible in their article writing and omitting that broader context from those articles. So attempting to add that broader subject matter is frequently a good endeavor. SilverserenC 04:18, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The OP complains that some content was removed. An example of that content is "Homosexual men tend to exhibit more feminine patterns in the amygdala than heterosexual males do". The first source is 17 years old and labeled as a "commentary", which makes me suspect that it wasn't even peer-reviewed. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:31, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think part of the "beating about the bush" problem is the OP is asking the wrong question and expecting a yes/no answer to resolve their content dispute. The concern about whether something is BMI can only be assessed by looking at the particular sentence(s) in an article and what claims they make. Trying to address this "is BMI?" at the level of an article topic or even article section can only result in a "often" or "probably not" response. The example of "what is automatically covered under WP:BMI (like Cancer treatment)" isn't 100% either. Most of it is. But stuff about social disparity, public perceptions, and funding are likely not. For example, the fact that UK politicians decided to create a magic money tree for cancer treatment (Cancer Drugs Fund) is pretty much 100% politics and current affairs and 0% BMI.
Oh, and if we started removing BMI article content because it referenced reviews more than 5 years old, we'd not have much. That's a threshold for querying whether what's there is still valid, and a goal for selecting new sources. Not for deletion. -- Colin°Talk 14:30, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I totally agree with SilverserenC's opinions. I also agree with Colin°Talk's point that "BMI can only be assessed by looking at the particular sentence(s) in an article and what claims they make". However, since BMI itself defines WP:YESBMI and WP:NOTBMI, I believe the quesion of whether "anatomical structures" are biomedical is a reasonable one, especially when this was cited as the reason for blanking an entire section.
I was surprised to realize how unclear the scope of WP:BMI/WP:MEDRS still is. The guideline is very powerful in justifying edits, but its boundaries are not well defined. This creates recurring disputes, since editors sometimes use MEDRS to remove material unilaterally without wainting for consensus.
As I understand the value of WP:MEDRS, I think the WP:BMI page should include more thorough examples of what falls entirely under its scope, and, in confusing cases, what does not fall entirely under its scope. (To clarify I am not trying to resolve content dispute in Amygdala. I am now interested in WP:BMI/WP:MEDRS) Benthorntag (talk) 14:51, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
But it wasn't blanked because it was on "anatomical structures". It was blanked because the text made a claim about a correlation between the human amygdala and social connectedness or human sexuality, and claimed "The amygdala processes reactions to violations concerning personal space. These reactions are absent in persons in whom the amygdala is damaged bilaterally." I'm struggling to see how you think those aren't "information that relates to (or could reasonably be perceived as relating to) human health". I don't think 'the question of whether "anatomical structures" are biomedical' is a reasonable one, any more than "the question of whether being English is a capital city" is a reasonable one.
I don't think it is useful to give "examples of what falls entirely under its scope, and, in confusing cases, what does not fall entirely under its scope". Those can only be decided by looking at specific sentences and the claims made in them. Not by generalisations. -- Colin°Talk 18:01, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In the Amygdala case, the section was blanked only because the amygdala is "an anatomical structure", and one author thought that "an anatomical structure" deserves BMI [6], not for the reasons you mentioned. This is why I intervened. I have seen people use WP:BMI/WP:MEDRS casually as a reason for blanking in many other articles, often with arbitrary interpretation. To prevent such subjective applications of BMI, a more systematic clarification of WP:YESBMI and WP:NOTBMI would be useful.
If you don't think that defining BMI by example is useful, do you think that WP:YESBMI and WP:NOTBMI are not useful? I believe these general guidelines are useful in clarifying borderline cases and preventing future disputes. Benthorntag (talk) 00:33, 3 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Benthorntag, no matter what Zefr said in his efforts to explain this to someone who is very new to Wikipedia's exceedingly complicated and mostly badly explained rules, most of the material that was removed should not have been in that article. This is not a game in which we parse a casual comment and try to figure out if there's a loophole that we can exploit. We're trying to do what's best by the article, which is not pretending that statements about how people with strokes and brain injuries behave is "just" anatomy and not any kind of medical content at all. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:48, 3 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This is BMI Talk page. If you want to support specific edits in Amygdala, Talk:Amygdala would be a more appropriate place. The discussion over the blanking in Amygdala has already reached some resolution because the blanking has been partially restored, and it now has the section "Social function".
My concern is that problems arise when regular editors feel they can dismiss contributions by "someone who is very new to Wikipedia...", and they feel they have the authority to arbitrarily interpret the guideline and do whatever they believe is "best" for the article. This pattern seems particularly common around BMI/MEDRS.
I think 3/4 editors agreed that "anatomical structures do not entirely fall under BMI". I believe that this is worth noting in BMI, while It is arguable how it should be conveyed and where it could be incorporated. This would be useful to prevent future misunderstandings (such as "The brain is BMI, so all the sentences in Brain should follow the MEDRS guideline"). This may seem obvious to logical editors, but I am starting to realize that this might not be obvious here. Benthorntag (talk) 03:05, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Zefr is not engaging in an "arbitrary" interpretation of Wikipedia's sourcing rules. Zefr is extraordinarily consistent in his interpretation of MEDRS. You or I might disagree with his interpretation, but there is nothing arbitrary, capricious, or changeable about it. Also, everyone is supposed to do what they believe is best for the article. We have a policy that says If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it. But – lest you think that means you can ignore all these MEDRS rules and spam in whatever outdated and/or exciting studies WP:IN MICE you want – please remember that while it's okay to ignore the rules, it's not okay to ignore other editors. Consensus is king in a wiki.
The problem with your preferred rule is the same problem that we'd have if we told a bunch of teenagers "interrupting the teacher in the middle of class is not always prohibited". We might mean "please interrupt the lesson if it's a true emergency", but we'd probably get "I'm bored and wanted attention, so I started talking about my favorite YouTuber, because you said it's 'not always prohibited'." WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:40, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Part of my concern is the casual "it's okay to ignore the rules" stance. I think this should be reserved for truly exceptional cases. If editors can interpret MEDRS too aribitrarily/subjectively (e.g., "I think Brain is BMI, Biology is BMI, Chemistry is BMI...") to justify their edits that would not otherwise be supported, then BMI/MEDRS becomes nonsense propaganda by losing its clear connection to human health.
I suggest including "anatomical structures" in WP:NOTBMI , since it seems that WP:NOTBMI includes items that "do not fall entirely under BMI". If this is confusing, incorporating "anatomical structures" to Special cases might be another option.
(Since I don't want to make discussion longer than necessary, I suggest that we stick to BMI here. I believe your examples in education are not the same. In terms of BMI, it is not likely that irresponsible editors come to check BMI carefully. I think BMI is general instruction for responsible editors who can read and think logically.) Benthorntag (talk) 06:24, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The simple concept is that the amygdala is a brain structure among the many of neuroanatomy, which underlies neuroscience in general and the clinical practice of neurology. It is most certainly a BMI topic.
Special:Diff/1315055680 drafts the core basic sciences for the study of medicine as BMI topics. Zefr (talk) 16:49, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's more complicated than that. Much of anatomy is a vocabulary exercise. The names of things are not biomedical information. "Look at these funny bumps in the brain. I'm going to call them the amygdala" is not biomedical information. "Huh, people who have damage to those funny bumps in the brain have this weird neuropsych behavior" is biomedical information. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:30, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The new edits by Zefr significantly expanded the scope of BMI to include "scientific disciplines". I am certain that we are getting closer to the idea that "Everything is BMI".
I strongly believe that we should limit the scope of BMI to "information directly related to human health", rather than to "information potentially related to human health". This is because any concept could be potentially linked to human health through human reasoning, association, and imagination. If it includes "information potentially related to human health", it is unclear whether the first example raised by WhatamIdoing is BMI. But, if BMI is "information directly related to human health", this clearly rejects the first case, while this covers the second example raised by WhatamIdoing, regardless of whether "atomical structures" fall under BMI. Benthorntag (talk) 00:17, 5 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I have not found any of the recent changes to be particularly helpful.
Benthorntag, I have been editing Wikipedia for about 20 years now. I have been writing its policies and guidelines almost that long. I have also seen all sorts of snake oil being touted in Wikipedia articles that long. I mention this because you keep pushing to have the rules be as lax as possible, and I'm never going to agree to that. As a matter of good policy-writing practices, saying "My subject is exempt from your inconvenient rules except when it isn't" is always going to result in someone twisting your innocently intended rule to push some pseudoscience. Maybe this week you're just trying to get some cool-sounding but ultimately harmless speculation on evolutionary biology in an article by claiming that it's "just" anatomy and that anatomy is exempt from MEDRS, but tomorrow it'll be someone selling an ineffective cure for cancer who is claiming that it's "just" anatomy and that anatomy is exempt from MEDRS. Whatever the game, whatever the rules, the rules are the same for both sides. Other editors (or scammers) might be Why We Can't Have Nice Things, but we really can't do this. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:45, 5 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As a reader, I fully respect your years of contributions to Wikipedia. Although I was hoping for a clear logical reason (rather than pragmatic ones) for opposing clarification that "anatomical structures are not automatically covered" in BMI, I respect the long experience of the editors here and will leave the future development of BMI to the regulars. Benthorntag (talk) 00:56, 6 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Core basic science disciplines in the study of medicine

[edit]

User:Zefr recently added a section on "Core basic science disciplines in the study of medicine". I have reverted this as (a) premature and (b) seeming to resolve a dispute to which Zefr is a party. The latter is a bit of a red flag that warrants a review as to whether the change has community backing.

This new section contained the following bullet points:

I think we should discuss whether it is helpful to mention these fields as topics that are "biomedical information" and thus in scope of WP:MEDRS. Or whether they are for many of them merely scientific disciplines for which other editing guidelines are sufficient. -- Colin°Talk 18:24, 5 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Good to give this some thought; I have no objections to the revert. The addition was only partly motivated by the amygdala discussion.
When responding to a non-clinical medical science edit not having a sufficient source, using BMI is the default option to steer the user to more basic medical science, such as a review on the properties of an individual neuroanatomical structure. We do not have a description of what the basic medical sciences are in the BMI guide. WP:MEDASSESS (evidence quality) progresses upward from lab research to clinical case reports (left pyramid). There's a step in between where a basic medical science review (BMI source) would be useful. This is what a clinical research or drug candidate plan would need before committing resources.
In editing the amygdala article, IP 135.180.49.239 (appears to be Benthorntag) stated in Special:Diff/1307722206 (25 Aug) that "you don't need MEDRS on a general neuroscience article" to which I reverted and requested a BMI review.
Similarly, in this discussion about medical science sources to support clinical (topical) uses of manuka honey, Benthorntag (as the 135 IP editor) argued for using case studies.
Having an outline of the basic medical sciences was the motivation for adding the core disciplines to satisfy "the goal of this page is to help Wikipedia editors differentiate biomedical content from other content, and to find sources that comply with MEDRS – that present accepted knowledge and mainstream positions on biomedical information."
When consulting this section of MEDRS, or as an introduction to the BMI page, it may be helpful for readers to see what the basic medical sciences are. Zefr (talk) 19:50, 5 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The current definition is fine: "Biomedical information is information that relates to (or could reasonably be perceived as relating to) human health". I have not looked in detail at the disputes you listed, but "could reasonably be perceived as relating to human health" is very broad and seems to apply in both cases. Toadspike [Talk] 21:36, 5 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think the key word is 'reasonably'. Some things in the additions could reasonably apply to human health in certain contexts; others (say how and when a drug was discovered, or the molecular composition of human hair) not so much. Bon courage (talk) 00:20, 6 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Too broad coverage. Anatomy involves, for example, Kidney (vertebrates), which I wrote, but most of the article has nothing to do with the MEDRS (expect the section about the mammalian kidney). D6194c-1cc (talk) 06:57, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If "scientific disciplines" like biochemistry are included under BMI, then there is little to stop someone from expanding BMI to biology, chemistry, and physics, because they are all closely related. If BMI/MEDRS becomes excessively broad and deviates from its original purpose of protecting human health, then editors may start to refuse to comply with it (if one is allowed to ignore bad rules). IP 135 is not me. It is just another sign that readers feel subjective applications of BMI/MEDRS create confusion and limit the breadth of knowledge in Wikipedia. Benthorntag (talk) 00:49, 6 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think "readers" in general know anything about BMI/MEDRS, let alone have feelings about them! Ultimately there are many cases where what is "biomedical" is subjective, and as in many areas will require the exercise of editorial judgement. MEDRS has been a conspicuous success at keeping Wikipedia article knowledge-focussed (as opposed to factoid-filled, or misinforming). On the other hand there is always the need to make sure editors do not WP:CRYMEDRS, and scoping BMI too broadly could invite that. Bon courage (talk) 01:58, 6 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think the proposed changes are far too broad. Many biochemical, immunological, microbiological, and physiological studies are conducted without any immediate application to humans. Indeed, many never apply to humans but may be relevant to other species. Biological science encompasses more than human biology. Therefore, I don’t think BMI/MEDRS necessarily applies in these cases. Boghog (talk) 07:16, 6 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]